Films & Schedules
- Documentary Views

THE ART OF THE STEAL

DIRECTOR: Don Argott - UNITED STATES

The decades-long battle for control of the Barnes Foundation's near-priceless collection of impressionist art—as waged by the city of Philadelphia against the collection's protectors—is the riveting focus of Don Argott's documentary.

“What is art’s relationship to the public at large and who decides who gets to see it? Rarely has the City of Brotherly Love seemed so rancorous as in Don Argott’s fascinating, thoroughly researched documentary on the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. The foundation, established by Dr. Albert Barnes in 1922, boasts one of the world’s largest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and early modern paintings—works that Barnes wished to make accessible to serious students and everyday people. But since his death in 1951, lawyers, elected officials, and businesspeople have sought to exploit the Foundation, ignoring the express wishes of Barnes never to turn his collection into an enormous tourist attraction—and never to move it to Philadelphia, a city he despised. The Art of the Steal is filled with intrigue, conflicting reports, enormous egos, and provocative questions about money, culture, and art.”–New York Film Festival.

Filmography: Rock School (05), Head Space (06), Two Days in April (07).

CHARLIE HADEN: RAMBLIN BOY

DIRECTOR: Reto Caduff - SWITZERLAND

Charting the renowned jazz bassist’s life from his rural roots through his seminal collaborations with the legendary likes of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, Reto Caduff’s rollicking documentary affords the unassuming music icon the chance to take centre stage.

Music legends don’t come any more unassuming than Charlie Haden. Courtesy of Reto Caduff’s charming documentary, we discover that the affable jazz bassist’s underlying honesty and decency inform every note of his music. As Haden camps out in a studio to revisit the country music of his youth, he reflects on his rural roots and his debut crooning twangy ballads on the radio at the age of two. Through wondrous archival footage and enlightening interviews, Caduff leads us through the next six decades, detailing Haden’s seminal collaborations with legends like Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, as well as his ongoing projects such as Quartet West and Liberation Music Orchestra. Just as Haden’s simple playing style masks an innate understanding of the complexities of melody and composition, so too does his placid exterior disguise a deep-seated passion that manifests itself in his art, relationships, and politics.

COOKING HISTORY

DIRECTOR: Péter Kerekes - CZECH REPUBLIC

This riveting, unusual documentary takes a tour of 20th century battlefields through the eyes of those who kept the soldiers fed and fighting: military cooks.

This riveting film opens the door to the secrets of little-known historians to show a dimension of war not found in textbooks or archives. Cooking History presents portraits of various army military cooks from all over Europe who have witnessed the European wars of the 20th century. Their recollections tap into a subjective view of historical events, one that diverges in some respects from conventional beliefs. They take us on a journey through pivotal dates, facts, declarations of war, battles, and peace agreements. The tales they tell convey a sense of life and death in the “war apparatus,” as well as a sense of hope, longing, and survival in the midst of destruction and despair. Kerekes’ look behind “great moments in time” introduces a fresh perspective on European history.

Filmography: About Three Days in Monastary Jasov (94), The Mary-Valery Bridge (00), 66 Seasons (03).

FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES

DIRECTOR: Gerald Peary - UNITED STATES

For the Love of Movies offers an insider’s view of the critics’ profession, with commentary from some of America’s best-regarded reviewers.

Boston Phoenix film critic Peary has crafted an entertaining and informative history of American film criticism from its raw beginnings before The Birth of a Nation to Bowsley Crowther’s 27-year reign at The New York Times; from the incendiary Pauline Kael-Andrew Sarris debates of the 60s and 70s right up to the current battle for audiences between youthful Web site populists and the veteran print establishment. Providing a unique insider’s view of the film critic’s profession are comments by some of America’s most influential film writers, including A.O. Scott (The New York Times), Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), Roger Ebert (The Chicago Sun-Times), as well as other legends like Sarris, Janet Maslin, and Jim Hoberman.

GARBAGE DREAMS

DIRECTOR: Mai Iskander - EGYPT

Garbage Dreams explores the rapidly disappearing way of life of the Zaballeen, Cairo's "garbage people."

Garbage Dreams looks at the hopes and dreams of a group of teenage boys whose livelihoods wholly depend on trash. As members of the Zaballeen, a Coptic Christian community on the outskirts of Cairo, they inhabit a small village constructed almost entirely of the garbage they sort for a living. For generations, Cairo has depended on “the garbage people” to collect their trash. The Zaballeen survive by recycling the city’s waste—80 percent of all the garbage they collect—creating what is arguably the world’s most efficient waste disposal system. In 2003, the city decided to replace the Zabelleen with private, multinational garbage disposal companies. Their giant waste trucks now line the streets, but they are contractually obligated to recycle only 20 percent of what they collect, leaving the rest to rot in giant landfills. The Zabelleen community is finding their way of life disappearing before their eyes.

THE INHERITORS

DIRECTOR: Eugenio Polgovsky - MEXICO

Eugenio Polgovsky’s remarkable documentary is a day-by-day study of the lives of several groups of child laborers in rural Mexico.

Polgovsky’s poetic The Inheritors, which he wrote, directed, and edited, immerses us in the daily lives of children who, along with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor. Polgovsky (Tropic of Cancer, PIFF 29) documents reality in rural Northern Mexico in a way that captures the people’s dignity and humanity as they work long hours, in often hazardous conditions, picking tomatoes, peppers, corn, and beans. The film observes them in other labor routines, such as producing earthen bricks, cutting cane, gathering firewood, ox-plowing fields, and planting by hand, as well as in their artistic endeavors, such as carving wooden figures and weaving baskets to sell. The indelible impression: from the frailest elders to the smallest of toddlers, the cycle of poverty continues.

LEARNING FROM LIGHT: THE VISION OF I.M. PEI

DIRECTOR: Bo Landin, Sterling Van Wagenen - UNITED STATES

A revelatory documentary exploring the vision of I.M. Pei, the distinguished 90-year-old Chinese-American architect as he works on his latest commission, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, one of the most complex building projects of his long career.

One of the most distinguished architects of our time, I.M. Pei has spent his storied career creating designs for some of the world’s most treasured structures, including Paris’s Pyramide du Louvre and The National Gallery in Washington D.C. Learning From Light chronicles Pei’s adventure through a recent and historically monumental challenge: his commission to design the Museum of Islamic Art for Doha, Qatar. Traveling the Islamic world from Spain to Cairo, the 90-year-old modernist architect embarked on a journey of discovery to research the culture, history, and landscape that would inform the project. Pei searched for inspiration in the ancient origins of desert architecture and translated his findings into one of the most complex building projects of his career.

Filmography: Alan and Namoi (92), The Haunted Desert (01), The Work and the Glory (06).

OCTOBER COUNTRY

DIRECTOR: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher - UNITED STATES

October Country is a beautifully rendered portrait of an American family struggling for stability while haunted by the ghosts of war, teen pregnancy, foster care, and child abuse.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for best U.S. Documentary Feature at the American Film Institute’s Silver Docs Festival, October Country is a beautifully rendered portrait of an American family struggling for stability. Dottie, matriarch of the upstate New York family, says it all in the opening sequence: “If you don’t have family, you don’t have anything.” The phrase echoes as a story rife with war trauma, teenage pregnancy, domestic and sexual abuse, and foster care achingly unfolds. Portland filmmakers Palmieri and Mosher examine intimately the forces that unsettle the working poor and the violence that lurks beneath the surface of American life. With rich visual metaphors that float through multiple storylines, they paint a portrait of a family that is unique, but also sadly representative of the struggles of many.

REMBRANDT’S J’ACCUSE

DIRECTOR: Peter Greenaway - NETHERLANDS

In this companion piece to Nightwatching (PIFF 32), Greenaway, a former painter, deconstructs Rembrandt's The Night Watch and examines it in terms of the time and place it was completed, and the controversy surrounding its accusation of murder.

In Rembrandt’s J’Accuse, Greenaway deconstructs The Night Watch, the greatest of the Dutch master’s portraits of Holland’s 17th-century militias. Greenaway, who began his career as a painter, takes the painting apart plane by plane and reads it the way it was read in 1642 after Rembrandt completed it: as an outrageous piece of theater in which the painter bit the aristocratic hand that fed him by embedding within the painting a sensational charge of murder. “A scholarly yet broadly accessible illustrated lecture that examines the Dutch master’s most famous painting for proof that it was responsible for his dramatic fall from grace. A companion piece to Greenaway’s Nightwatching [PIFF 32], this film brims with juicy conspiracy theories and forensic investigations worthy of top-tier TV crime drama.”—Variety. “Just because you have eyes does not mean you can see.”—Peter Greenaway.

REPORTER

DIRECTOR: Eric Daniel Metzgar - UNITED STATES

Reporter, a feature documentary about Nicholas Kristof, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, reveals the man and his methods, and just how and why real reporting is vital to our democracy, our world-awareness, and our capacity to be a force for good.

Old-fashioned investigative journalists who rely on a unique synthesis of persistence, guile, courage, curiosity, and very thick skins to break the news are increasingly in short supply. One such rare creature is New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof’s columns have earned him two Pulitzer Prizes, convinced Bill Gates to significantly increase his charitable donations, introduced the world to places like Darfur and arguably changed the tide of history. Filmmaker Metzgar trailed after Kristof when he took off to pay a visit to rebel warlord General Nkunda in the middle of a Congolese jungle in 2007. What Reporter reveals is the dangerously high price of reporting on world events at a time when the translation of complex facts half a world away into meaningful, impelling stories has never been as necessary nor as urgent.

Filmography: The Chances of the World Changing (07), Life. Support. Music (08).

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE

DIRECTOR: Michael Winterbottom, Mat Whitecross - GREAT BRITAIN

An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war, and terror to establish its dominance.

“Based on the best-selling book by Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine seeks to explain the rise of disaster capitalism: the exploitation of moments of crisis in vulnerable countries by governments and big business. The film traces the doctrine’s beginnings in the radical theories of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, and its subsequent implementation over the past 40 years in countries as disparate as Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain, and most recently through the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Filmmakers Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross use a brand of artistic license to present a cinematic experience that takes this theory to a new audience. Warning: After viewing this film, you may interpret our world history in a new light.”—Sundance Film Festival.

SONS OF CUBA

DIRECTOR: Andrew Lang - GREAT BRITAIN

Sons of Cuba follows three boys at the prestigious Havana Boxing Academy as they prepare for the 2006 National Boxing Championship of Under-12’s.

Sons of Cuba is set in the legendary Havana Boxing Academy, no ordinary institution: this is a boarding school that handpicks nine-year-old boys and turns them into the best boxers in the world. The results have been stunning—Cuba has dominated Olympic boxing for the past quarter of a century. The boys’ duties extend far beyond the ring: they are groomed not only as world-class fighters, but also as international symbols of their country. Castro dubs them “the standard bearers of the Revolution.” Lang follows three young hopefuls through eight dramatic months of training and schooling as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives, Cuba’s National Boxing Championship for Under-12’s. During the season, crisis strikes: Fidel Castro, the boys’ leader and inspiration, is taken ill, and all of Cuba’s Olympic boxing champions defect to the USA, leaving the boys contemplating a future which is altogether different from the one they have been taught to believe in.

STRONGMAN

DIRECTOR: Zachary Levy - UNITED STATES

Strongman is a moving story of determination and heart in the face of the hard facts of life.

South Brunswick, New Jersey, is home to Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun, the self-proclaimed “Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal.” He can leg-press two-ton trucks, bend pennies with his fingers, and perform many other homemade acts of extreme strength, concentration, and focus. But Stan, now middle-aged, needs a plan, for as Levy’s affectionate portrait reveals, success—in both his professional and personal life—takes another kind of strength and savvy. Filmed over the course of several years as Stan struggles to be taken more seriously than a kids’ birthday party attraction, maintain his rocky relationship with his girlfriend, and stay on the bright side, the one thing that can’t weaken is attitude. The winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival, Strongman is a moving story of determination and heart in the face of the hard facts of life.

SWEETGRASS

DIRECTOR: Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor - UNITED STATES

Sweetgrass takes on the mythology of the American West as it observes a seasonal last roundup of sheep by ranchers in Montana.

Lucien Castaing-Taylor, who teaches in Harvard’s Visual Anthropology department, and Ilisa Barbash, of Harvard’s Peabody Museum, describe themselves as “recordists” rather than filmmakers, as they capture a family and their animals in their final season herding sheep in Montana’s spectacular Absaroka-Beartooth mountain range. The herders work like cowboys out of the old West, but unlike cattle, stubborn sheep can be hilarious to watch. From the cockeyed sight of a massive sheep drive down a small town’s empty main drag, to a herder pouring his heart out on a cell phone at the top of a monumental vista, Castaing-Taylor and Barbash sharpen their sense of humor as well as their all-embracing lens to create an unforgettable cinematic experience. “A really intimate, beautifully shot examination of the connection between man and beast.”—The New York Times.

THE TOPP TWINS: UNTOUCHABLE GIRLS

DIRECTOR: Leanne Pooley - NEW ZEALAND

Jools and Lynda Topp are twin sisters and one of New Zealand's most beloved performing duos. This affectionate portrait mixes remembrances of their childhood, testimonies from friends, fans, and colleagues, and examples of what the girls do best, a mix of lesbian folk songs and anarchist vaudeville.

One of New Zealand’s most cherished and charmingly irrepressible performing duos, twin sisters Jools and Lynda Topp are immensely popular with rednecks and left-wingers alike. Although they do not look identical, their voices virtually are, melding into a yodelling, country-and-western harmony all its own. Jools and Lynda introduce themselves during a performance full of music and happy memories. Colleagues and friends proceed to shine light on the special success of the sisters’ cheerful, radical lesbian love songs and anarchist vaudeville comedy. Pooley weaves performances and home movies from their carefree farm childhood with footage of the sisters during demonstrations against nuclear weapons, apartheid, and for gay rights, to fashion an affectionate, unforgettable portrait.

VIDEOCRACY

DIRECTOR: Erik Gandini - SWEDEN

Videocracy offers a look at the media empire of Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and how his reality TV shows beguiled a nation.

A jolly, Mussolini-loving agent, an aspiring martial artist/singer, a paparazzi wrangler-cum-outlaw, and Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy, are just a few of the outlandish personalities in this documentary that explores the mad world of Italian television. In a country obsessed with game shows and reality television, whose leader owns a controlling stake in much of its media, what sort of life is worth living and what sort of example is worth following? Videocracy quietly asks these questions while casually observing its subjects go to auditions, attend lavish parties, and get thrown into jail, yielding jaw-dropping answers.

Filmography: Sacrifiico: Who Betrayed Che Guevara? (01), Gitmo—The New Rules of War (05).

WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY

DIRECTOR: Don Hahn - UNITED STATES

Don Hahn's engaging look at the resurgence of the Disney company's animation tradition.

By the mid-1980s, the once mighty Disney Animation Studios were in a slump. Despite a flock of eager and talented young animators, innovation at the studio was held at bay by an old guard of conservative original-era executives. By the end of the 1990s, however, Disney had produced a string of bona fide hits from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to The Lion King. What can account for this turnaround? Director Don Hahn is a 30-year Walt Disney Studios veteran, and his juicy behind-the-scenes tell-all of this transitional period is an encyclopedia of first-hand footage, drawings, and interviews detailing all the in-fights and ego trips, unequivocal failures and soaring successes, tragic lows and elating highs of the Disney renaissance.